Most wet wipes are not 100% biodegradable, which is a problem by itself, made worse by the fact that, after being used, they become soaked with chemicals (from make-up or body fat, for example). Also, the (frequent, as it seems) habit of being flushed down the toilet has caused serious clogging issues in the sanitation network of cities all around the world. Unlike toilet paper, wet wipes don’t disintegrate and are hard to remove.
In Portugal, the situation is not so dramatic yet, but wet wipes are the cause of about 90% of clogs in urban buildings.
Most wet wipes in the market are made of non-biodegradable materials. That has a negative effect on sewer water quality, and posteriorly on the rivers. Since they are not biodegradable, due to the plastic fibers that are part of the wipes, this affects not only the contamination of the sea water, but also the habitat and health of animals, that come back to us in the shape of a delicious fish dish.
Flushing them down the toilet seems to be a logical option for a lot of people, but this behavior leads to clogs in pipes of cities, and remains hidden in the darkness of plumbing, reappearing in the water treatment stations or, in case of clandestine piping, in a river close to us. That’s how this problem landed in the “laps” of a group of eco-school students from EB23 André Soares (Braga).
It was while cleaning this river, which had been dealing with environmental problems for many years, that the students stumbled upon a white mass stuck in the vegetation by the river bank, hidden from most people’s eyes. In an initial approach it wasn’t possible to identify those “things” stuck to shrubs and plants. At a certain moment a member of eco-schools unfolded that white mass and was able to put together several white rectangles… they let out a “WOAH!!! These are wipes to clean the butt!”. Where could they have come from?… clandestine piping brought up a behavior we couldn’t believe… there were people who flushed their used wet wipes down the toilet!
After another session of cleaning with the same findings regarding the presence of wet wipes in the entire intervention zone, the eco-schools group tried to discover the fate of the wet wipes used by the guardians of AE André Soares’ students. An online survey was then given to the school community, to find out the habits of the population regarding the use and discarding of this product.
The study revealed that about 68% of respondents use some sort of wet wipes in their everyday life, with 22.1% confirming that they flush them down the toilet.
Less than half the respondents (48.7%) seemed to know that wet wipes are bad for the environment, which reveals there’s still much ignorance regarding such an important problem. This data confirms the fears about the scale of this problem, seeing as almost a fourth of respondents use the toilet to get rid of wet wipes, with all the consequences for our health, environment and future, along with the financial struggle for out water treatment stations to fight the strangling of sewers, clogging and dealing with the consequences. Although this study was done on a small group of people, it’s still representative of the reality of the families in Braga, and the percentage related to the daily usage can’t go by unnoticed.
Keeping in mind that, when residual waters are released to the rivers, they already went through a long cleansing process, a question arises: how many wet wipes reach the water treatment stations, and how many get “stuck” along the way?
Many journalistic articles have been published talking about this problem, namely in Portugal, trying to alert the population to what they call a “nightmare”. In addition to being a big threat for the environment, this adversity leads to municipalities spending a lot to solve it, using taxpayer money that could’ve been used in other ways.
In what ways can a citizen contribute to minimize this impact? Starting by reducing the daily usage of wet wipes (in many circumstances they can be easily switched by washable cloths), by buying only biodegradable wipes (if a product has no demand, the suppliers have to improve it) and, of course, by putting used wipes in the trash and never the toilet.
It’s clear that it’s up to those who are responsible to make people aware of the correct usage of this product and the risks it has for the environment, through informative labelling, but the consumer has, in this case (as in all others), the most important and active role.
Local campaigns about this situation are urgent, it can’t remain deep in the plumbing of the cities… “out of sight and out of mind”. We need urgently to change attitudes, developing critical and pro-active spirits of informed and assertive consumers.
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